10th March: Daddy's Girl

I struggle to have a solid relationship with my daughters due to the restrictions I have on seeing them - namely 2 Saturdays a month, for 12 hours a time - imposed entirely by the ex (even though we have joint custody). To compound this, my parents collude with the ex-wife to restrict my access to my girls, but hey, that's another tale entirely and not relevant at all for a running blog!
 
Bare with me on this bit for some background... It is relevant I assure you! The ex is a teacher at the girl's school so I cannot get involved in the parenting side of their schooling, consequently I have not been able to go along to sports day and cheer them on as it has been made perfectly clear by the ex that I am not welcome at her 'place of work', so I have had to listen to tales from the girls about what they get up to.

From these tales, I know that my eldest is turning into a right little sports fan; playing hockey and netball for the school, revelling in the occasional man-of-the-match, or rather girl-of-the-match performance, undertaken a mini triathlon and loves her sports in general just like her Dad!.. She's even picked a football team to support; she's decided she's a Chelsea fan (for her sins!)

Having seen all the photos I've taken, the collage of mud-spattered race numbers on the wall around my computer desk and the collection of competitor's medals & wrist-bands, my eldest daughter asked if she could go with me on one of the muddy runs that I enjoy.

Both my girls love being outside playing in mud and water. When they are over and we go walking the dogs I have to ensure they change ALL their clothes beforehand because of the state they will be in on our return! Where there is mud, the girls will go and in the river on the dog walk they will be found splashing around till they're soaked to the skin, even in the middle of winter as the temperature hovers around freezing.

So it seems that the running I do combines the two loves of my eldest; running and getting soaked and muddy, so it should not have been too surprising that she asked to join me on a run.

The previous time she was round I said that it would be fine for us to go running and outlined to her where we would go and how far it would be, which did not faze her. With her sister due to be off to a party the next time they would be coming over, the perfect opportunity was presenting itself without one being jealous of the other spending 1-on-1 time with their daddy.

When they arrived that morning, leaping out the car she bounded over demanding to know if it was still fine to go running when her sister was off at a party... It seems she'd been looking forward to this for the last couple of weeks!

After the dog walk and while her sister had disappeared off to her party - a 'lazer quest' party, we put on running gear and off we trotted. I made it clear to her that we did not have to run every step, so if she was tiring and needed to catch her breath, then we could walk it.

Leaving the house with a very excited eight year old I had to calm her down as she was ready to run as fast as she could. Once I'd explained again how long it would be by time and distance, the pace was dropped to something more manageable!

We jogged towards the local common which is very boggy at present through all the rain and snow melt. On the way we bumped in to Moose out walking his dog - Moose is a fellow runner and Wednesday cyclist, although his running is deadly serious PB time pursuits over 10k and 1/2 Mara's on roads, very different to me and my running of dragging my sorry arse around glad of survival and a finish!

The common was exactly what I thought it would be like with mud everywhere and in no time my mini-me had lost her trainer in the cloying mud! which she found hysterical (much to my relief). After rescuing the trainer we sallied forth over stream through puddle and bog. She was loving it and stopped to smear some of the mud over her face. Being the ever tactful caring dutiful father I pointed out the wisdom of what she was doing considering there's cows and horses roaming over the common pooling where they please.

After the common we came to the motorway bridge and traversed over it. I was told that they had never been down here before as she did not know the bridge existed. I told her of the mud and water of the woodland to come and she fair sprinted to get there.

Steaming through all the puddles that were up to her knees in places we soon reached the end of the run and ran around the little roundabout at the Lord Derby pub (its got a set of working stocks inside it) and started for home.

Unfortunately there was to be tears when in one of the puddles a submerged branch was tripped over, with a bang on the shin and a splash. Thankfully with a bit of mental diversion the tears were very short-lived and all too soon we were back at the house.

She was absolutely sodden and muddy as you can see below, so off she went to have a shower and after a good scrub she curled-up under the furry blanket to watch a film, a hot chocolate beside her as she struggled to stay awake with the exertion of before.

Filthy face.

Mucky pup :)

Before the run I had told her we could record it on my Garmin Forerunner watch so she could see exactly how far and fast she had run, so when all faculties had been restored I was pestered for a print-out of the run to take in to school to do a show and tell. With all the stats on the side I was asked to explain to her what they were and to label all the relevant ones so she would be able to talk about her achievement with an expert's air, and rightly so. After all this 8 year old had just gone and run a 3 mile XC course of mud and puddle in a pace not far shy of 10 minute miles! And not it would be wrong not to mention that she's got a very proud daddy :)